The Great Gatsby Quotes by Themes

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  • Great Gatsby Quotes by Theme
    • The American Dream
      • "It is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams" CH1
      • "he was a blond, spiritless man" CH2
      • "I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared...."
      • "I've been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and I want to go west."
      • "His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one"
    • Family
      • "My grandfather's brother ... sent a substitute to the Civil War" CH1
      • "Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions"
      • "My family all died and I came into a good deal of money."
      • "He had a big future before him, you know."
    • Love and Relationships
      • "Neither of them can stand the person they're married to" CH2
      • "'You were crazy about him for a while.'" CH2
        • "'I married him because I thought he was a gentleman" CH2
        • "I was never any more crazy about him than I was about that man there" CH2
      • "Most of the women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands" CH3
        • "both wives were lifted, kicking into the night" CH3
      • "I thought I'd never seen a girl so mad about her husband" CH4
      • "Your wife doesn't love you. She's never loved you. She loves me."
      • "Yes... but of course I'll say I was"
      • "He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free."
    • Wealth/Money
      • Social Class
        • "fundamental decencies ... parcelled out unequally at birth" CH1
        • "valley of ashes" CH2
          • "ash-grey men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air" CH2
        • "Wreck! That's good. Wilson'll have a little business at last."
        • "Finest specimens of human molars..."
      • "all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had" CH1
      • "my grandfather's brother ... sent a substitute to the Civil War" CH1
      • "It was sharply different from the West" CH1
      • "It's a libel. I'm too poor." CH1
      • "Her voice is full of money"
      • "I decided to go east and learn the bond business."
      • "You know, old sport, I've never used that pool all summer"
      • "they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness"
      • "My dear, most of these fellas will cheat you every time. All they think of is money."
      • "My family all died and I came into a good deal of money."
    • Gender
      • "a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner" CH1
      • "both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering" CH1
      • "like a young cadet" CH1
      • "Sophisticated - God, I'm sophisticated!" CH1
      • "an immediately perceptible vitality about her" CH2
      • "'He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive.'" CH2
      • "Mr Mckee was a pale, feminine man" Ch1
      • "Dishonesty in a women is a thing you never blame deeply" CH3
      • "He was his wife's man and not his own"
      • "And I hope she'll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool"
    • Morality
      • "I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever" CH1
      • "'Got some woman?' I repeated blankly" CH1
        • "my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police" CH1
      • "Eckleberg's persistant stare" CH2
      • "I had no desire to meet her" CH2
      • "criminal" CH3
      • "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known" CH3
      • "No, he's a gambler" CH4
        • "the World Series had been fixed in 1919" CH4
        • '"Why isn't he in jail?" CH4
      • "I'm really sorry, but I don't get involved with my friends' deaths."
      • "I thought you were an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride"
    • Prejudice
      • "a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl" CH4
      • "covered Gatsby with his expressive nose" Ch4
      • "I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me"
      • "They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole dam bunch put together
      • "Civilization's going to pieces... If we don't look out the white race will be utterly submerged"
      • "next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white."
    • Lies and Deceit
      • "Daisy was not a Catholic, and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie." CH2
      • "I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West" CH4
        • "San Francisco"
      • "lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe" CH4
      • "then it was all true" CH4
      • "I'm thirty. I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."
      • "My family all died and I came into a good deal of money."
      • "Yes... but of course I'll say I was"
    • Dissatisfaction
      • "Mrs Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain" CH2
    • Memory and The Past
      • "I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War" CH1
      • "Can't repeat the past?... Why of course you can!"
    • Appearance vs Reality
      • "the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe" CH1
      • "an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight" CH2
      • Rumour
        • "'they say he's a nephew or cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm's." CH2
        • "thought he killed a man once" CH3
        • "A German spy during the war" Ch3
        • "I'll bet he killed a man" CH3
        • "I don't want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear" CH4
      • "This fella's a real Belasco!" CH3
      • "Absolutely real - have pages and everything" Ch3
      • "the apparition stood swaying for a moment" CH3
      • "He was never quite still" CH4
      • "my first impression, that he was a person of some undefined consequence had gradually faded" CH4
      • "Gatsby's very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend's wife" CH4
      • "I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody"
      • "I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him and I wasn't far wrong"
      • "what realism!"
    • Violence and Aggression
      • "a cruel body" CH1
      • "always leaning aggressively forward" CH1
      • "the knuckle was black and blue" CH1
        • "a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a-" CH1
      • "Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand" CH2
      • "Beat me! Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!"
      • "they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness"
  • "I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler" CH1
  • "He's just a man named Gatsby" CH3
  • "The world and its mistress" CH4
  • "But it wasn't any use. Nobody came"

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